The Deep Love For Suffering Humanity Embedded
In The Principles Of PROUT
By Garda Ghista
18 March, 2010
Countercurrents.org
On the front page of yesterday's New York Times, we read about Flint, Michigan, USA, and about how doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients. It means that tens of thousands of poor people in America will no longer be able to go to the doctor. The official unemployment rate in Flint is 27 percent. The unofficial rate is 40 percent – coming to half the population! See what is happening in America! It is reaching the rate of Kerala, India which has an official unemployment rate of 42 percent. Then in that situation, how do those 42 or 47 percent pay medical bills or for that matter purchase a kilo of rice or a loaf of bread to eat?
I can only say, and I think millions would say with me, that to prohibit doctors from accepting Medicaid patients with vision, hearing, foot or tooth problems is inhuman. These are the poorest of the poor people whom we are talking about. People with these problems are primarily the elderly. So do they just want to kill off the elderly faster?
In addition, Michael Moore, in his latest article “The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear ...a St. Patrick's Day Lament ,”says that women on Medicaid will not be allowed to give birth in any hospital in that area northwest of Flint. Here are the concrete facts and signs indicating America's collapse into third world nation status. It is painful to read about. It is even more painful to watch. It is very painful to come out of the train at New York Penn Station and pass by a man lying down face down on the concrete with head in his hands, as if in desperation at where to go or how to live any longer.
I am protesting here at the state of America and the state of the world. These are all signs of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. There is no call, no excuse, to leave a man lying on the concrete by the train tracks in sub-freezing temperatures. Why should any man feel that desperate?
When an economic system, such as capitalism, causes thousands to commit suicide, when an economic system, such as capitalism, causes millions to die a slow, painful death from starvation, when an economic system, such as capitalism, allows our political leaders to ignore the sufferings of the toiling, labouring masses, whom we can call wage slaves, then what are we to do? We need to think about annihilating that economic system called capitalism, which wreaks havoc around the world and now here in America. We need to think about replacing that killer of human beings called capitalism with something that works.
In my humble opinion, an economic system that works might be Prout. We do not have to be preoccupied with the word Prout. But, we should examine its tenets. Its practical step-by-step principles. Prout says, decentralize the economy. Give economic power to the local people. Create a country wherein every community, every hamlet, every village, every town, controls its own economic destiny. Prout says, set up every business as a cooperative. Business cooperatives cause members to think not for themselves but for the entire collective. It compels people in a sweet manner to think and work collectively rather than individually. Is it not a good thing? We do not see that in capitalism, do we?
Prout says, grow local, buy local. Produce local, buy local. This keeps money rolling. This keep people employed. Isn't it? How happy we will feel to see that every man and woman in our community who wants a job, has a job. How happy we will feel to live in a community or town where no one has fear of being laid off, no one has to go through the humiliation of being unemployed and unable to put food on the table.
Prout says, control our own health care system locally. Produce our own medicines, leaning heavily on ayurvedic, homeopathic and unani medical systems. Then we will not see any more iatrogenic illnesses. The thousands of iatrogenic fatalities occuring annually in America and other countries will come to a screeching halt, isn't it?
Prout says, implement the barefoot doctor system. Let the medical students and volunteers visit every home in the world to inquire if the residents are okay, if their health is okay, if they need anything, any medicine, any hygiene supplies, any physiotherapy, or if they need simple human companionship.
Prout says, no outsiders coming into a community to plunder its resources, its coal, timber, limestone and other minerals resting quietly under the ground. No more outsiders! They are called capitalists! No more capitalist outsiders allowed into our communities to plunder and exploit the sweet, simple humanity!
These are simple tenets, are they not? Tenets that hold the key to economic freedom for the toiling masses. This is Prout - in a nutshell. Other tenets are there. But how much to write here?
Here is another tenet. There must be a ceiling placed on the maximum amount of income anyone can accumulate. That ceiling should be determined by the people themselves, not by any government. We know that if one man has billions, he is taking billions out of the mouths of the hungry and starving, right? Because when capitalists turn profit into their God, they become ruthless beyond measure. All sorts of beautiful social service programs for the elderly, the disabled, the weak and infirm, the single mothers, the orphans - all those service programs are obliterated by a few strokes on the keyboard in the name of the God called profit. Witness the policies of IMF, World Bank and other so-called benevolent institutions created and controlled by capitalist elites.
Prout says, bring every possible service project into the community. Take care of every single person in that community, regardless of whether the person is 100 days old or 100 years old. There is to be no distinction. Have maximum, compassion and softness for the helpless persons who depend upon us to have that compassion and softness. Isn't it? W need to convert our inhuman world into a human world. And then we need to go one step further and convert that human world into a neohumanist world, where every created being, every living entity, including the plants and animals, will be nurtured and cared for with softness and mercifulness.
This is Prout. Prout is all these things, and much, much more. So let us think collectively how we can manifest some of these ideas, some of these tenets, these principles, of Prout. If you do not want to use that word, 'Prout', it is okay. But see the rationality, the compassion, of Prout's principles. See the deep love for suffering humanity embedded in those principles. Then please help me to build that kind of society, to build that new economic structure. The goal, the goal of all of us, must be to end human suffering. We want to see everyone smiling and laughing. We want to create a cooperative utopia on this earth. There is no reason why we cannot do this. Let’s together study these principles, these tenets, of Prout. Then let us use those compassionate principles to build a new world. In doing so, we will usher a new dawn, a golden era on our planet. Millions are weeping and waiting for us to remove their suffering. So let us start this work today itself.
Garda Ghista is a freelance journalist, author of The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing; Wife Abuse: Breaking It Down and Breaking Out, and Founding President of World Prout Assembly and Hearts Healing Hunger, both with global headquarters in Colorado, USA.
